4A the university daily kansan
opinion
thursday,september 11,2003
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To everyone who parks at Daisy Hill and never leaves: I am parking at the Lied Center right now, and now I have to walk back.
Beer makes people smart. It made Bud wiser.
perspective
perspective
I didn't know that they made vodka flavored Jell-O.
My roommate just woke up at four o'clock in the morning to the image of an angry communist pointing at the ResNet guide and a guy yelling Japanese and holding a box of Pop Tarts.
--perspective
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Next time you see me running down 15th Street, please do go ahead and give me a ride to campus. Jogging there from Kasold is not exactly a fun time.
If you were wearing a red Old Navy shirt on Tuesday on Wescoe Beach with little white stripes around the arms I just want to let you know that you are hot. You should definitely be on Wescoe Beach more often. You are very, very, very attractive.
perspective
Did anybody else think that the funniest thing about Tuesday's comic was the fact that whoever it was spelled Britney wrong?
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I have a major problem with this cross-
word. The clue is in-human creatures, but
ex-girlfriends won't fit.
Smely freshmen, smely freshmen what are they feeding you? Smely freshmen, smely freshmen, it's not your fault.
I heard this story about a girl who was walking home drunk one night and actually sprayed herself in the face with mace.
No, no, no. No. Tuition or not, I will run you over.
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Don't these people with the PT Cruisers realize that they are not for racing, but are for cruising? Cruising happens about 35 to 40 miles per hour, not 80.
perspective
I want a dishwater sign that says clean on one side and dirty on the other side. I want dirty to be spelled with two R's because I'm dirty.
perspective
On behalf of all of the Park and Ride riders I would like to thank all of the freshman who ride it, making it impossible for us who actually have to use it to get home.
Chancellor Bob almost ran over my roommate today. He needs to learn how to drive.
They should card everyone smoking on Daisy Hill because I know that not all freshmen are 18.
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stinson
Zach Stinson for The University Daily Kansan
Two years later: U.S. still looking for a friend
Sitting in a cab this summer in Belgium, a familiar thought crossed my mind; Sept. 11.
It had been a long time
Not that I wanted to renew acquaintances with that surreal day.
But the cab's driver, a French-speaking Morrocan, was piqed by my American-style French. He began peppering me with questions about American life. He had some family in San Francisco; he'd thought about visiting them once. He asked me where I was from, and I told him I was from New Jersey. He didn't know that was, so I told him it was near New York.
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That led us to l'onze Septembre Sept. 11.
I asked him if he'd felt bad for America. He certainly had, he said. He'd even cried when he saw video of a man falling from one of towers. It was, he said, a horrible day for everyone.
The driver wasn't so sure how he felt about America lately, though. He said he understood America had to act in Afghanistan. But Iraq was something different. It had changed his mind about the United States.
Henry C. Jackson opinion@kansan.com
"Je ne suis pas sûr que les Etats-Unis sont mon ami," he said. "I'm not sure if the United States is my friend."
My cab driver isn't the only one. It's been a long time since the rest of the world liked America. Just a little over two years, to be precise.
Nowadays, the United States has only one consistent wingman — our old pals Britain — and a slew of acquaintances with strained relationships. Remember when Sept. 11 made the stars and stripes look sympathetic?
In France they do. Le Monde, the venerable French newspaper, declared on Sept. 12, 2001, that "we are all Americans." The French government also was quick to send its condolences and offer support.
Just two years later in Evian, France, at the G-8 summit this June, France's president, Jaques Chirac and the U.S. president, George W. Bush looked like ex-lovers — awkward, trying in vain to look normal and painfully unsure how to make things normal again.
France might not be important, as the proprietors of "freedom fries" are quick to tell you. The only problem is, everyone else is ditching America at the party too.
It's not that America didn't have the right to punch back. Firing back after Sept. 11 was one of those rare moments for a superpower, when flexing its muscles didn't seem arrogant.
Germany left after with the war in Iraq became unavoidable. Most of the Arab world didn't make it to Afghanistan. Even the British populous — though certainly not Tony Blair — has chafed at the U.S.'s bravado post-Sept. 11.
Unfortunately, President Bush and co fell into a familiar trap. After a throwing a punch, they failed to ask "What's the next step?" or perhaps more importantly,
"What's the step after the next step?"
Both Iraq and Afghanistan can now accurately be classed as quagmires. Death tolls and domestic terror incidents are piling up in Iraq. Afghanistan — the forgotten conflict — sees allies barely maintaining control in the capitol, let alone the country's unruly provinces.
All the while, the United States has worn out its welcome as international darling; post-Sept. 11 bloodlust has fogged rearviews around the world, even here in the United States. The next most logical step is the most difficult: finding the way to go home.
The task will be hard — that's why they call quagmires quagmires. And the stakes are as high as they have ever been. But the United States needs to find a way out of this rageful fistfight.
Two years later Sept. 11 still happened and the United States is still struggling with the wounds terrorism inflicted. The trick now will be to avoid fresh, self-inflicted ones.
face-off
Jackson is a long Valley, N.J., senior in journalism. He is a Kansan campus editor.
Should KU Blood Drive allow gay male donors? Regulation needs overhaul | Studies vindicate practice
The recent Student Senate bill to fund the fall semester blood drive has once again brought to light the discriminatory practices of the Food and Drug Administration. Government regulations prohibit men who have had sex with another man since 1977 from donating blood regardless of their sexual practices, the use of condoms or the frequency with which they engage in sexual activity. This regulation is long overdue for an overhaul.
Different institutions may disagree on the exact percentage of new HIV cases that originate from men who have homosexual relations, but one thing is true: Men who have sex with men are at the highest risk for contracting HIV. What is surprising, though, is the fact that men and women who contract HIV through heterosexual sex are the second-highest risk category—and most of those cases involve women. Intravenous drug use, which also appears on the screening questionnaire, is the third-highest category of risk.
Heterosexual women who contract HIV outnumber IV drug users. AfricanAmerican individuals are in the highest risk category by race. Are we going to deny all African-Americans or heterosexual women the opportunity to donate blood? Would such a regulation ever stand up under scrutiny? The answer is no, and therefore the FDA should not discriminate against gay men either.
Everyone who has irresponsible unprotected sex puts himself or herself at risk for contracting HIV. If the goal of the screening process is to reduce the chance of HIV getting into the nation's blood supply, why isn't everyone quizzed about how often they have unprotected sex and
with how many people said sex has occurred? The regulations will deny a homosexual man who always has monogamous sex and always uses condoms, while a heterosexual woman who never uses prophylactics and sleeps with a different man every weekend is more than welcome to give.
If fully realize the importance of keeping our blood supply HIV-free. Certain sexual behaviors put one at higher risk than
Face-Off is a project of the Kansan editorial board. Two editorial board members argue opposing sides of a hot-button issue that affects students at the University of Kansas.
This section is designed to help students understand opposing sides of an issue and make informed decisions.
The FDA should remove all questions pertaining to a person's sexual orientation and sexuality from the questionnaire. Instead, the first question about sexual behavior a donor is asked should be, "Have you had unprotected, irresponsible sex with anyone since 1977?"
others. But marginalizing an entire class of people is inappropriate in any instance.
Readers who have a suggestion for a topic that could be used in Face-Off or wish to join the editorial board, please call Louise Stauffer or Stephen Shupe at 864-4924. E-mail suggestions to opinion@ kansan.com.
Until the FDA rescinds this controversial regulation, we relegate gay men to handing out cookies and screening eager donors if they want to help with the blood drive. Why don't we just assign gay men their own drinking fountains while we're at it?
Patrick Ross for the editorial board
Once again, we face the perennial issue of the "discriminatory" practices of the KU blood drive against gay men.
It is on the basis of statistics garnered through government research, and not on the basis of small-minded bigotry that gay men are rejected as donors for the KU blood drive. Right now, according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, men who have sex with other men, who the
It is true that all blood is tested after collection from a donor. These tests are becoming even more sensitive for HIV antibodies, and the risk of contracting HIV from a transfusion is indeed minimal. However, "testing" does not begin at the laboratory with a blood sample in a tube. It begins with the questionnaire
CDC calls "MSMs," account for 63 percent of all HIV infections. What is more, MSMs, at 60 percent, are adding more new cases of HIV to the male population than any other group. Admittedly, demographics of infection are shifting with time. Yet in the view of the CDC, the MSM group remains at an "alarming" risk for HIV/AIDS.
all blood donors must complete prior to donation. This questionnaire, produced by the Food and Drug Administration, attempts to screen out donors who are at a high risk for having unsatisfactory blood. It is at this point that "discrimination" re-enters the picture. The questions do not discriminate against a potential donor's identity (i.e.the gay man's), rather they screen against high-risk behavior or occurrences.
A straight man who had been sexually assaulted by another man would, assuming he answered honestly, be rejected from giving blood. Is he gay? No. Is he an MSM and therefore at high risk? You'd better believe it. The converse might also be surprising. Consider the case of a man that was in fact gay in orientation but was totally sexually inactive and had always been so. Is he gay? Of course. Is he an MSM? No way. Can he give blood? Most certainly.
Undoubtedly, there are groups in America who still feel discriminated against, even today. Gay men are certainly one of these groups. However, the FDA's rejection of a gay man's blood cannot be construed as malicious discrimination.
The FDA does not discriminate against any gay man in America, and in fact they never have. From a statistical standpoint, as the above examples indicate, the FDA couldn't care less about a donor's sexual orientation.
The FDA discriminates against high-risk behavior, not lifestyle.
latt Pirotte dissenting
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